The new computer came today. A nice brand new shinny laptop, complete with , and Windows, a slip case to carry it in, However, there's was something missing; a clean operating system. It is so loaded with bloatware and junk-ware, that's its hard to use. Figuring out Windows 8.1 is interesting enough without having to deal with getting rid of crap-ware. Once I get rid of the extra stuff this promises to to a very nice machine for years to come. It took me a hour from the the time I hit power until I got the windows start screen the first time I started it up. Fist one must set the time &date in the bios,(Yes we still Have Them). then its on to go through a series of menus to customize it, Most of which are redundant, and can be changed later if one needs to. What I particularly dislike was the fact that I HAD to create a Microsoft account before I ever got to the window screen. The User name/email/ password, became my sign on for logging into the computer. Which in a way I guess is good, but it seems to be another way for something to go wrong. Finely I got into the "Wonderful World of Windows". Window 8.1 doses have a learning curve, but once I played around with it for most of a evening, I think I have much of what I need of it figured out. First thing I did was use Explorer to download Chrome, and sign in and synced my account, so all my stuff is there. NICE. Now I have Chrome and switching between the windows apps screen and desktop pretty much in hand. All that is needed is to get rid of the bloatware-and general crap that I have on it. starting with the anti virus that it came with, and several other programs that are trying to "help" me. Getting a new computer is a way to start fresh and to in many ways begin again. In a world where everyone keep their world either on hard drives or in the clouds somewhere. On whats must balance. A new computer is a chance to go though and see what programs and the like you have on the old one that you don't use or never really needed in the first place. In a time where everyone literately has their own machine . Keeping your information safe is vital, and so is backing it up. I believe in three copies of everything.1. Original on local hard drive, 2. On a separate drive not connected to machine all time. backed up on a regular basis, 3rd, Off site back up; some in the cloud or a off site location, so if computer is destroyed, house burns downs, both local copies are gone, for whatever reason, you still have 3rd copy off site to back up from, this applies mostly to stuff you can't recreate, ie, pictures, and possibly music collections. Security is a high priority to most everyone theses days. As it should be. So remember to use hard passwords, and be careful not to let them get gout. In fact change your password every few months, if not sooner depending on the level of security you need. As for being tracked; just assumed you are, because in all likely hood you are by someone, be it Google, or other search engine, and all the site you visit are racking you, maybe not by name per say, but they do keep a pretty good profile on their visitors. I have seen research that shows that many times they're profiles are way off the mark in many respects, which can either be a good or bad thing. Point is they collect information, everything from your phone, to your computer, to your cable/sat boxes, they know what your watching and when, and I've even heard of technology for them to delivered targeted ads groups of individuals based on location, time, and age range etc.

In the last 25 years the nation as a whole since the invasion of the microchip has been steadier and steadier more dependent of technology to help us with our daily lives. many of couldn't run our business with the internet, email, and IM, etc. In fact a great many of our business now exist solely because of our new technologies. In a world a fart can be heard around the world, one ask oneself how much do we really need? And more importantly what are the prices we're willing to pay? For every step for have everything in our hands in a second, we loose many of of our rights to privacy, and amenity, and just fading into the background. Because there is no more background to fade into. Its all been turned into a wall or servers full of our lives on hard drives for any government agency who suddenly take a notion to make our lives miserable, just or not, it has the power, to force the owners of those data filled servers with our digital lives on them, to hand over whatever they have, thus letting them into our private lives, to places they have no right to be, and be fore now there wouldn't even be. I've heard folks make the argument,"I have nothing to hide" I doubt that, I'm sure there a very few people who are that much of a open book. I've heard the notion, that they trust the government not to spy on us, "Wake up and smell the Coffee" The Government has been spying on us in one way or anther for one excuse since Hoover, started the FBI, Now we have Homeland Security, DEA, and a host of other 3 & 4 Letter agency who can if they want get warrants with little or no probable cause to spy on us anytime. Once that start doing that it won't take long to ruin your lie, reputation. Or even put you in jail. That's not counting what the next administration is capable of doing, This administration has proved itself to be pretty untrustworthy. One can hope the next cleans house, but I'm not holding breath. You go ahead and trust them, I won't. Our country was founded on the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Over the last few decades, those rights have been under attack from almost every front imaginable, what they can't do on the national level, they're trying to do on state and local levels, slowly wedging a divide into our country. Government has seen to forget that it works FOR the people, not the other way around.So with Christmas coming soon. and the excitement of presents under the tree, and family together, please remember to be safe, not in only what you do here in the real world, but in what you do in the Digital World.

Last week, a major crisis ensued. The channels on our satellite receiver got messed up something terrible. When I tried to call, I got one ring and a busy signal, who ever heard of a busy signal on a 800 number So I tried chat and never could get through. In doing some searching online I found that was a major issue will almost all Dish customers. While Dish has since managed to fix our channels, and all is now well, in our world. The broader question come to mind. Middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday and there is a problem like that, and everyone is up in arms over it. for fear it won't be fixed in time for the season premieres that are starting this week and the following weeks of September. What does this say about the nations need to have their tv and the levels of excitement that go to when they lose their chosen content. This is a nation of people who are obsessed with having their media when they want it, where they want it, and throw one small wrinkle into the pond and the whole thing goes out of control, and people can't live without their fix of their chosen content. People have had media collection going back to the turn of the 1900's when records for the public were just coming out, even rolls for player pianos, and roll players, then, the record players came along and lasted in one form or another for almost 75 years, first the 78 rpms the 33 1/3 and their smaller cousin the 45's in the '50's well into the '60's possibility even into the '70's . Millions of records were sold and kept for generations, to be passed down through the generations. A Cottage market of buying and selling used records grew, and was quite healthy until the latest generation of media came about in the early 2000's when with the advent of the personal computer and digital music and eventually digital downloads effectively put the traditional music store and even bookstore out of business. In this brave new world even a day without being about to access ones chosen content is a cause for potential meltdown, and phone calls, emails and chat request to the providers to find what is the issue. Its amazing how little patience people have when things don't go the way they expect. The question, then becomes , when does enough connection become too much. The theory behind the "connected live" is to make our life easier, and to make the downtime we do have more enjoyable, to spend with family etc, instead of doing chores, or other task that take time away from the relationships, in our lives.

That leads me to my next discussion; Something I had never heard of, at least not in theses terms; "Who owns the Internet of things? We already have smartphone that generate mounds of data about us, pour usage, and gps etc, and other devices that track our usage in one form or another including those stupid little shopper club cards, they use that to track every purchase you make, they know the last time you bought bread, or beer, or pop etc. They may not know you individually by name, but they're working on it. The next generation of data collectors is on the way, and very soon. our connected devices, namely the electrical grid, and almost everything plugged into it in the house, from the washer/dryer the refrigerator and other major appliances and connected devices.The end result of of all of that connectivity, is a pile of data, that has a number of people who want to have access to it for various reasons, some valid, some questionable. In the example of a car, you have the manufacturer, the dealer, the insurance, all who would like access to the data generated by the car. The question become who has the right to what data and for how long,what can they do with the data, etc. Heres the article to read;http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/who-owns-internet-things/2013-09-16?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

It would seem to me that while this while this is just beginning to take told, now is the time to set ground rules about who has access to what information is gathered by our connected machine to machine, to grid lifestyle and what they can do with it legally , ethically and morally.

Moving my blog from Blogger to this site is a idea that I have been thinking about for quite some time. When I first started the blog doing it on Google’s Blogger was quick and easy and just worked. Over the last couple of years I’ve gotten to where it wasn't allowing me to do what I envisioned. However, idea of starting over from scratch and importing all of the articles from the original was daunting. Here I was able to more of what I have always wanted to do, video, and separate blogs based on their topic or subject, instead of one on top of another, making it hard to find a older ones, which I often mention, to folks,.I also added a gallery for each section, to put pictures relating to the articles in the section. I also hope to add video versions of the blogs as I go.I hope that this new platform will foster more interaction between you, the reader and me. The world to on-line movie and television has not stood still while I’ve been resting on my laurels, so to speak. Just recently, We went through a blackout of our locally owned NBC station, by their parent company, due to a dispute with Dish Network over retransmission fees. For almost 2 weeks we had no NBC, not that I missed it, but others in the house do watch stuff on it. so it was a problem. I called the local station and got the we can’t do anything, because it actually has nothing to do with us, its our parent company, fighting with Dish, and they get caught in the middle. I called Dish, and got told that Raycom Media had asked for about 400-600% in retransmission fees, Fees which was unwilling to pay.In doing research I found that this not the firsrt time Raycom has used this tactic to get its way. There is still a ongoing dispute between them and CBS and Time Warner, that has been going on for several months. It seems now that the major stick point in that particular fight is digital distribution rights. Thats is to say, CBS is ready to just give away digital rights to it contents, so its becoming more important to include them into deal when their negotiatedTW and CBS & NetflixFor more information about . Blackout of local station across the country check out theses links;HEARST TELEVISION KNOCKS OUT LOCAL TV FROM COAST TO COASTWHO ARE THEY KIDDING? CONSUMERS ARE SMARTER THAN THAT!VIEWERS LEFT WITH NO PLACE TO TURN AMID SUMMER OF BLACKOUTSCBS AND NETFLIX ANNOUNCE EXTENSION OF MULTIYEAR LICENSING AGREEMENT FOR LIBRARY CONTENT IN THE U.S.

In the end the consumer is left hold the empty remote that does not fulfill its promise of entertainment. However, today there are many option that were not available even 10-5 years ago, in some cases even a couple of years ago. Today, if there is nothing on the possible 250 stations, depending on your package, There are alternatives, Many set-top boxes, theses include everything from your blu ray player, to dedicated OTT boxes such as Apple Tv, my favorite, the Roku now offer a huge number of channels. Channels ranging from the almost mainstream, Netflix, and Amazon, to a world of channels covering a wide variety of topics and interest. Most of the channels are free, Even the ones that are pay, aren’t that expensive. The point is with the right OTT box connected to your tv, you should always be able to find something you WANT to watch, when you Want to watch it, instead of just watching what's on because it the only thing on. The DVR has pretty much eliminated the need for appoint TV, or Must See TV, No Appointment needed, You don’t need to see it Now, you can see it if and when you want, and in many cases want. The current big hurdle is getting content providers to work with distributors like Netflix, and Amazon and do deal that allow them to make money, and still price Netflix and Amazon out the business, No one makes money if the content is locked up in a vault somewhere gathering dust. This is hopefully the first of many more articles to be written and put up here in the future. I’m hoping this new platform will allow to me to do more and keep up with media and technology as I feel the need to comment on itKenneth Lawson

The time has come, again to rant about the past year. However, there are a variety of subjects to choose from. One could go on about the current state of the telecommunications industry, and the future on online viewing habits and venues, to the recent advances in television technology. However, there are bigger issues that need addressing. Such as Gun Control, Mental Health, and fiscal responsibility of our government, and the like. Its all fine and dandy to sit here in our techie towers and ponder the future of telecommunications, which is important, but in the final analysis, if the country has lost its moral compass and its roots all the technology in the world won’t get it back on the right track. It will just go down the wrong way in a technological blaze of glory, which will keep people from seeing what the real problems are.The shooting last year , prompted me to write about my views on gun control, particularly concealed carry. I don’t belive new rules governing guns are going to solve the problem. The majority of shooting are done by people who have mental issues who were not treated properly or at all. In many cases they were dumped from one organization back and forth to another and no one took responsibility for making sure they got what they needed, either treatment that worked or locked up for both their and societal safety. The point is everyone who has any responsibility in any level of government is too busy playing the blame game, pointing their fingers at everyone elses when the Sh**t hit the Fan, No one has gumption enough to stand up and say, he was my patient, or our department was handling him, and frankly, we screwed up, and we’re looking to see where we screwed up. No one has said anything remotely like that, nor will they, because, the would be taking responsibility for ones own actions, or in some cases inaction.

This country was founded on a principle that all men are created equal, and should be given the benefit of the doubt, and along with certain other rights, such as to vote, and pursue that which give us pleasure, so long as it do no harm, to society . When the government has become so big and complicated that many times one department doesn't know what the others are doing, there is a fundamental issue with the power structure, and delegation of authority, and who answers to who. While it is clearly laid out in the constitution, and on the state levels, Sometimes many things are lost in translation, and the people who are responsible, tend to forget to whom they’re ultimately responsible to, to the people who elected them to their offices. They were elected and they can be unelected just as easy. President Obama made history when was the first black president to be elected., again he made history by being reelected, what his final role in history will be remains to be seen, and will not be fully understood for decades. Just as all of our past presidents have been judged through the eyes of time and history to be kinder than they were at the time. One can hope history and time will be as kind to President Obama.

Looking forward to the new year, which has already started. Once again find many things to talk about. The advances in media in the last ten years or so have far outstripped sixty plus years of media that came before it. From the time in the 1950’s when colorTV came on the scene and the movie industry felt threatened, to the next generation of TV, being cable and satellite, there really hasn’t been a fundamental change in the content itself, it was essentially still the same as it was in the 1950’s plus or minus a few little tweaks, depending on your point of view. Then the VCR came along, and that was the beginning of the changes which are still happening. The movie industry soon embraced TV, as a way to reuse a huge backlog of movie content that had stored and monetize it and get it to still make them money, which they’re still doing, only today on a grander scale. The VCR became the DVR, Digital Video Recorder,, in which we still say we’re “taping” a show or a movie, and there is no actual tape involved, it all ones and bytes. Of course with the surge of good relatively cheap fast broadband internet across the nation, sites, like Hulu came along, which allowed us to stream content directly to our computers. while it wasn’t a perfect world, the content still had ads, but it was a small price to pay to be able to see free content, we wouldn’t be able to see in places we wouldn't normally see it.After that, came Netflix, one price a month, and all the streaming you could watch. Best part no commercials. It was the right product at the right time. They were aggressive with the marketing, and making content deals to get more content as they went along, as they were doing that, they also perused the hardware side, making deals to get their software in as many types of consumer products as possible, making it easier for the consumer to watch the content they paid for and as many platforms as possible. Since then many other players have jumped into the video streaming pool. It has become somewhat crowded. Amazon has their own streaming service, Amazon Prime, for a flat rate you get to stream a large catalog of material, however, having used it, I have to give it mixed reviews. To aid in the distribution of all of this video content online a number of set top boxes have come out. The best of theses is the Roku, its cheap their cheapest box is about 50. dollars, and their most expensive is 100.00. Theres no fee for using it. Only if you are using Netflix or other pay service, which you're paying for anyways. The best part is all of the free channels they have available .At present they have several hundred channels which you can add, 99% of them are free, The ones that require a fee are relatively cheap. As for subject manor, that ranges from many niche subjects such as specialized cooking to various forms of tech , to a wide range of music channels to stream almost any taste in music to you tv, and sound system, If one is is looking for a good way to supplant their cable or in a few cases eliminate it completely the Roku Box is a good candidate.

The discussions in Washington, about both technology, and gun control, and health care, are important and far reaching. The right of a citizen to defend themselves is paramount in the minds of many people. While I am deeply saddened by the shooting that happened last year, particularly the school shooting. I refuse to give up my right to defend myself and my family and anyone else who is in danger at a given time. As for limiting rounds in magazines that is just a first step to working to take our guns away completely, If we give in to that, we’re saying ok, fine you have my constitutional right, even if it only a round in my magazine at a time, I’ll remind you of it when I need it and I’m a round short to stop the situation and people get dead because I couldn’t have the capacity magazine I needed to stop the bad guy and he killed more people.

The idea of “TV Everywhere” has been taking hold over the last year or so. While more and more providers are beginning to embrace the idea of making their content available on a number of platforms. There are still a few problems to be solved.

One major stumbling block is the national broadband rollout. As with all government projects things take longer than planned;

In order to bring the concept of “TV Everywhere” into a reality as it has been hyped, much needs to be done on the back end with infrastructure both for wired networking, ie; DSL, Cable, and Google’s Fiber to the home, and other land lines, along with wireless networking, both in 3g, and 4g also known as LTE. On that front much needs to be done. Consumers need simple to understand and use data plans, and devices that can handle whatever network they happen to be on. Right now the wireless market is fragmented , each provider has their own ideas for data plans. As with text messaging, a few years ago they charged per text, both incoming and outgoing, now they have evolved to a” all you can eat “ bundled with your regular plan. I suspect that they’re still making money on the texting plans, although they’ll never say it.Now data is a whole another matter. The wireless companies, ie; Verizon, AT&T and other have been trying to move consumers up from either a feature or basic phone to a “Smart Phone” now for about a year. Anyone who has a smartphone, either Apples, or a Android, loves it. What they generally don’t love is the extra data package that have to pay for every month to make the thing work the way its supposed to.Which is tolerable if you only have one phone. What if you and your wife/husband both want a Smartphone? Then want to charge you a separate data plan for each phone. At a minimum of 30.00 each thats 60.00 on top of the rest to the bill. Verizon has announced their “Share Everything” Plan which sounds good, and for some folks it might fit, although the concept is good, they need to refine it some more.http://solutions.vzwshop.com/shareeverything/?cmp=KNC-58100000004897908

The charges per month to add a device varies, however, I did find a page which list the charges for the different devices, the smartphone being the most expensive.http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/plan-information/?page=share-everythingYou can read the pricing structure at the link above. To my way of looking at it its backwards. Devices like a tablet are far more likely to use more data out the the data pool then the phones, even smartphones. The ability to use a device as a mobile hotspot will also increase data usage.In short the confusion in the wireless sector is helping to keep “TV Everywhere” from getting the traction it needs in the wireless sector.

Other aspects that are slowing “TV Everywhere” is the way content owners and providers are handling the media they own or control. Simply put ; greed and control. While Netflix is famous for their breakthrough in bringing streaming content to the masses. Which they’re doing a good job at minus a couple of setbacks last summer, when they tried separating the streaming side from the DVD rental side,they created a huge backlash which they’re just getting over.Now they’re looking to expand into other markets; ie other countries. All of which cost money. They have to pay license fees for all of the content they stream. The content owners have been requiring ridiculous amounts of money from streaming services like Netflix, and Amazon to allow them to stream their content. Often these deal have very tight limitations which can limit availability for other markets, or time frames. Content owners need to balance the need for money with the idea of making their content available to a number of vendors. Venders such as Netflix and Amazon are caught between trying to make their prices affordable for consumers, and making enough to cover the cost, most of which are licensing fees.

On the consumer side, it can be confusing. There are so many different places to get content. Some have the same material as the others. There are at least 6 streaming services out there. Which one is right for you depends on what platforms you want to use, and what type of content you are looking for. Here is a article that compare 6 streaming services;6 Streaming Services ComparedThis will give you a general idea of what's out there. As to adding a set top box to use to stream your content to your tv, There are several; Appletv, Roku, are the top two, along with Boxee , and several lesser known streaming Set top boxes. Which one you choose depends on what you want to stream. Roku offers the best value for the money to me. The XS model will stream 1080 and has a usb plug on it allowing you to plug in a usb drive and play content directly off your usb drive to the tv. The selection of channels in increasing at a steady rate. You can find a wide variety of niche content channels that specialize in content that traditional media wouldn’t touch either because its too narrow of audience, or they won’t make enough money from it to justify a investment.

The adaptation of mobile devices by consumers to consume their media has driven content owners to rethink how they distribute and monetize their media. This is one area that is still fragmented and likely will remain so for some time as content owners figure out how to track viewership and make deals that are fair to everyone.

The road to “TV Everywhere” is still young. While great strides have been made, particularly on the OTT side, much needs to be done on the mobile side. Along with more equitable content licensing deals for venders. The consumer is demanding more ease of use and the ability to take their content from one device to another without missing a frame. While in place and in some cases work very well, there is little cross-platform compatibility , which needs to happen to make “TV Everywhere” work.In the end, there is still a long rough road to truly make the idealized concept of “TV Everywhere” work.

The tale of woe continues for the broadcast industry . This last week’s light reading included articles about cable rating drop offs. 11 of the 15 top cable networks have lost audience this year. The article could give no clear reasons why the sudden loss of audience. There are a number of factors at work here. The first in my opinion being price. The price has continued to go up for all involved with the industry. from content producers, to distributors and finally vendors, such as Netflix and Amazon who are constantly being asked for more money every year. In the broadcast world retransmission rights are the big deal breakers, along with sports franchise, brokering deals worth billions of dollars that will eventually have to be paid for by both the sports fans, and the non sports fan alike. in the final analysis the one paying for all of the “deals” and retransmission fees that are being charged back and forth between the local and national broadcaster such as Dish Network, and other cable companies will be passed to the consumer either directly in the form of higher bills, or add-on charges for services.

On the other side is the changing habits of viewers. No longer are they tied to the couch for 3-4 hours every evening guided by a set schedule. With the advent of the VCR and now the DVR consumers can now timeshift whatever they want and watch it whenever they want. and skip cominicals. Networks and content produces have just begun to learn how to embrace timeshifting, and figured out metrics to count what watched on the DVR in the total rating game. Now they have to contend with many new forms of competition for viewers eyes. With the advent of game systems that get online and allow consumers to stream content, granted a very limited amount of content, and just plain hooking a computer to the tv, which is ridiculously easy theses days. the whole world of internet content is suddenly available to the big screen in the living room. Now there is a wide range of ways to bring content into the tv, though various set-top boxes ranging from Blue-ray players, to the PS3, Xbox360, and the Roku, and Boxee, and, and other lesser know OTT boxes the open up a limited amount of content from the web to be streamed directly to the tv at the consumer’s convenience. Now there is no more “must See” tv. Its now I’ll see it when I get around to it” On whatever platform is handy. It's also possible to switch platforms mid viewing, going from one platform say the big tv, in the living room, and finishing watching the content on the Ipad, or other mobile device, thus freeing up the consumer to take their content as they like it.

A very recent article was just released with some very interesting statistic about the change in the numbers of households with connected tv, and the devices that connected to the tvs and what makes a tv a connected tv.It can be read here;http://www.leichtmanresearch.com/press/040912release.htmlOn the broad stroke, 38% of all households have at least one tv hooked to the internet via a video game system, Roku, or other OTT device, up from 30% last Year and 24% 2 years ago. The are a host of other very interesting statics in the article. The bottom line, to me, consumer are embracing OTT platforms and the offering they have. I don’t think traditional tv is anywhere near dead, and has many more years to go., If it is to continue to evolve and be open-minded about that way it handles its content deals. Retransmission deals and sports deals need to regulated preferably by the industry itself If they can’t keep the numbers down to reasonable rates, then the FCC and possibly the FTC needs to step in and set up new guidelines if not rules about the amounts that can be charges in theses deals.

One of many questions is what are media distributors, and content producers going to do about the changes in the ways that consumers are using their media.Some are already embracing the shifts in available venues. Such as HBO, they are continuing to open up their “HBO to Go” Concept to work with more devices. Comcast has been slowly opening it walled garden to allow more networks to be viewed on more devices. All of theses players need to compete with Netflix, amazon, and other OTT players who have been reaching to other means to get content in the face of rising bill for traditional cable/sat venues. Particularly if one does not need sports, or 10 channels of news and shopping . If one is not paying for the extra movie packages, ala, HBO, Showtime, etc, then the OTT venues start looking better and better.

Last Week, Netflix posted Q1 numbers. They showed that they are back to growth, although much slower. You can read the whole article herehttp://www.videonuze.com/article/netflix-q1-results-back-to-growth-albeit-much-slower The main point which I commented on is that they did make some mistakes last summer which they’re paying for. The Achilles heel of all of this, is the content owners who have routinely demanded more and more in licence fees, Thus leaving Netflix and its fellow players between a rock and a hard place in keeping prices down for consumers and still paying licenses and operation expenses.

The consumer is demanding more choices about what content is available, and on what platforms. One may wonder if content producers and distributors actually watch the content they produce or distribute. If they used the many options available today they would be embracing ways to make deals work for all parties. Instead of making its almost impossible for for places like Netflix and Amazon to do a decent deal that's fair to both. In the end it's the consumer that pays the price in one way or another.

On March 21,2012 My wife and I took my youngest one to see the TCM 70th Anniversary showing of Casablanca . Casablanca, a long time favorite film of mine, starring Humphrey Bogart Ingrid Bergman, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet. The film was one of many made in the time before tv, when they were all done in a almost factory like production, and churned out and released one after another. No one thought much of it at the time, other the myriad of problems they had making it mainly being the lack of script and daily rewrites, and no real ending. Somehow it got made. While it did get generally favorable reviews and a good reception from the public . Time have proven to be its best friend. The lasting impression of this movies and a few movies like it are what every movie made strives for. 99.9% don’t even come close. Casablanca was one of those rare cases of the right script actors, and directors and the the right moment in time. When you watch Casablanca, particularly like I had the pleasure of last week, you forget where you are and for a while you believe there is a Rick’s Cafe’ Americana . Bogart become Rick, and seems to embody the character. In watching it last week I recall seeing scenes that I don’t remember seeing before, when I’ve watched the movie, and I’ve seen the movie more times than I can count. Everything seemed sharper and and more defined , I know it was on a big screen, and had been remastered to be as near perfect as they could get, It seemed almost surreal . Of course of bigger moral questions still abound on either screen, At what point does one put aside one's feeling and do what needs to be done for the greater good of country, or in this case possibility even the world. Rick by, making it possible for Victor Laszlo and Isa Lund, his wife to leave and continue Victors work. In spite of his feelings for Ilsa. In doing so, Rick set himself up to finely become a more than a spectator of WWII . Every movie should be seen the it was intended on the big screen, with a audience and the whole experience. For thoses of you you are not a Casablanca fan heres a link to the wikipedia article on it;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_(film)

The last 2 months or so have been eventful. One of the more significant events was the introduction of Apple's next Generation IPad, Officially known as “The New Ipad” The rest of us call it the Ipad3. While it did seem to make several advances from the Ipad2 I got the impression from what I saw and heard that many tech reporters/ pundits etc, they were less than blown away by it other then its new screen, the retina display, which claims to pack more pixels then a HD screen into a small screen. Adding more connectivity options including models that will use the new LTE as it become available is a definite plus, However I’ve already read articles says that most of the use they get is on Wi-Fi, even that those that have 3g build into them don’t use it that much or even at all. If most the the use the 3g and potentially LTE units are getting is on Wifi, then one wonders if is it really that big of a selling point.The question then becomes to upgrade or not. If you don’t have one at all, the the new one is a no brainer. Also if you still have one the originals, it's pretty obvious that the Ipad 3 is a huge upgrade from the original. However, if you the the Ipad2, The question is more interesting. What do you do with it? How often do you use it and what apps that you use will like benefit from the new display and other advances under the hood. If you're happy with the Ipad2 and it does what you need it to do, and you feel like its working for you long term, then wait.

Other big news I’ve been reading about is the huge upswing in streaming of the last year, q11. Netflix has been reporting record numbers in over 2 million hours of content streamed, globally primary us The point of this and other streaming venues is that for the first time streaming is projected to beat out physical media .http://www.videonuze.com/article/it-s-hard-to-see-how-streaming-movies-will-surpass-dvd-blu-ray-in-2012 The question becomes how much will the public let themselves depend on streaming media? They allready depend to a large degree on cable and satellite for their media intake, with the help of DVRS they can time-shift their content to watch when they want. It took a few years but content owners have embraced the DVR and are now including DVR viewing in the rating. And have realized that even time shifted eyes are better then no eyes seeing their content, and thus their ads. The advent of streaming media over the last few years have forced content owners, providers to rethink their game plan, as to how they package their content and sell their content. Being able to pull netflix up on almost device from my Ipod Touch to a Ipad, or android tablet and any number of tv/internet connected devices,ie, Roku, Boxee, Xbox360, etc, open a whole new world for content owners. They now have a much wider audience to graze their offering, and putting content that was not useable on other venues suddenly give older underused content a new life.As much as I like streaming and use my Roku box, have found content that I didn’t even know existed on the various channels of the Roku. My feeling is that there will will always be a place for physical media. There are collectors and folks who don’t believe in have media be it music or movies/tv that they bought and paid for in a cloud, be it Apples or Google’s or Amazon’s. And would rather have a copy in their own hands to use as they please. Thats not even counting have ones own copy of classic movies or tv series that they particularly love.

Yes streaming is good, in fact it can be very good, There is no substitute for owning ones own media and content. Content owners and distributors need to understand several things; They can’t put all their egg in one basket, Streaming and DVD are here to stay, however, They are still missing a huge market in not bringing older classic content to the big screen on a regular basis. There are a number of ways that that programs could be set up to draw in older moviegoers who don’t care to see the newest hit of the week, but would love to see their favorite classic movie they way they first saw it on the big screen.To me streaming and movies are opposites sides of the same coin, and can definitely complement each other if done right.

The new year is upon us again. Many folks have looked back on 2011 in many different formats, and contexts, covering many aspects of the past year. Everything ranging from events that happened in current media, ala, ETv, to TCM, and their annual look at all of the actors, directors and other classic Hollywood personalities who passed last year.

Of course there are are obvious losses like Peter Falk, and Steve Jobs.Much as been made of the loss of Steve Jobs. Yes he did revolutionize the way we think of and use media, even the hardware we use to work with the media. His earliest days with Steve Wozniak , one of the co-founders of Apple Computers, lead to a great leap in technological advancement, not just in computers, but in anything that a microprocessor could be put into. As microprocessors got smaller and more powerful, they became more accepted by the general public. Soon there were a handful of theses new devices that played a new digital music format called MP3, which is a compressed copy of the music, thus taking up less space on a hard drive , but still sounding reasonably good to the ear. What Jobs did in 2001 with the IPod was take the big clunky MP3 Players that were out there, and redesign them into a sleek elegant , easy to use, player that worked as good as it looked. Along with that he developed ITunes, to handle the interface between the music and the computer, Mac being the only computer it would work with for several years. Eventually, ITunes was developed for the Windows platform, thus opening up the IPod experience to the rest of the world.The Importance of Steve Jobs on the world can't be understated, However, its easy to forget at the end of the day he like the rest rest of us was just a man, but a man with a grand vision. Many of us have “grand visions” of ideas or concepts that we would like to make happen. However, the reality is that very few of us have what it takes to articulate what they see, much less being able to lay out a plan or pull together a team to make it happen. Steve Jobs, was one of those rare few, who were in the right place at the right time with the right vision. Apple has big shoes to fill, to continue the grand vision Steve Jobs let us with. I read recently that Apple is working a new version of the Ipad, and Possibility's even a Apple Tv. All rumors, until they are announced. However, the upshot of the rumors is that Apple is still working to redefine the way we use and treat Media, preferably keeping as much as possible in their wall garden of Itunes. The predictions for 2012 have been varied and interesting. The main point most of what I’ve read is centered around two things. Mobile, and tv content. There seems to be a drive towards making as much content available on as many mobile platforms as possible, which is good. However, content distributors need to figure out ways to keep the content available on as many venues and platforms as possible. Having ones content limited to one place is essentially putting all your eggs in one basket. If that basket falls through, your left with a mess. However, if you have several deals with different distributors, such as Netflix, Amazon etc, and one goes bad, you still have your content out there hopefully making my money in the other places. And a bunch a smaller deals taking less for each one could pay off in the long run. Eliminating pay walls, and sign in as much as possible is something consumers will appreciate. and help keep them going back and using a service that has the content they want, without hoops to jump through to see it.

CES is this week, Jan 10-13, For those of you don’t know what CES is, here are a couple of links http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Electronics_Show , http://ces.cnet.com/ This is the Be all and end all of consumer electronic shows. Held every year in January, in Los Vegas. It brings out the best and brightest and biggest, and even some very small electronic are showcased here. Everything from 55” and up tvs and a variety of tablet PCs will be seen including accessories to go with them. and items one probably hasn’t even thought of yet. many items will be prototypes or first generation. How many will actually make it to the consumer hands remains to be seen. The hype and clamor of CES is matched only by the Hulu of the Super Bowl, In many ways CES is the” Super Bowl “of the Tech Wold. The difference being, that there are usually no clear cut winners. There will be some who shine and bring products, that consumers need or at least think they need.. How many of those products will actually make it to market and how many consumers buy them once their there remains to be seen. And there will be many more with great concepts or products, that for one reason or another will never be seen again. Little companies who spent their last dime to get there and rent a booth at CES and in hopes to make a the right impression with people who can help them get their idea or product out of the development stage. Essentially do or die, and if they don’t get deals they need they go home very empty handed.

Television is something I’ve talked about on many venues and have expressed many ideas on the possible future of television. There is a lot of discussion about the break up of the traditional package programing models that we’ve been using for the last 25-30 years, starting when cable companies started bundling channels together to get deals for both them and the consumers. Problem is the bundles aren't getting better, and the prices for what one typically get in a bundle has continued to rise substantially over the last few years. This coupled with increased use of DVR and other time shifting tools has made it increasingly harder to get accurate numbers of who is watching what and for how long.The traditional “shotgun approach” to advertising is no longer working, not that it ever worked to begin with, but until recently there wasn’t a better way to do it. Now with content being migrated to the web and, new ways to counts views and exactly who is watching and for how long Advertisers are looking for ways to put this to use and, the consensus is that it will scale up as the year goes on. However, they need to consider the consumer, they are tired of being bombarded by commercials every few minutes as they have been on traditional tv for years. A few well spaced, and relevant ads will do more then a slew of ads they don’t want to see. This will drive them away quicker then anything. The ala carte’ model has been kicked around on and off for years, What that means instead of buying a bundled package of channels you pick and chose the channels you want. There are problems with that, same as there are problems with the way we do it now, so nothing is prefect. The cable companies have been trying to avoid going to a model of this type for years for a number of reasons. A good article that I commented, on discussing tv and the future of IP tv is here. I read this site a lot and have commented on many of his articles over the last couple years.http://www.videonuze.com /Disney-Comcast-and-Why-TV-Everywhere-Alone-Is-Not-Enough/&id=3346Poke around their site they have a number of site that they link to that have excellent articles concerning a wide varieties of aspects of the media business.

On the subject of adding content to your tv, and competing with traditional cable/sat companies; there are set-top boxes that can stream a host of Internet based content directly to your tv. A couple of more widely known ones are the Apple Tv which brings the Itunes experience to your tv, allowing you watch your bought tv and movies, not only on you computer but now on your tv. and the Roku.Having received a Roku Box for Christmas, I find that is much more varied and interesting then I ever thought. It does the obvious streaming Netflix, Amazon and Huluplus to your tv, its only a matter of activating the account on the Roku site and box. and your good to go. However, going though the on screen channel store, you will find a wide variety of channels to chose from that will keep you busy exploring content. If that isn’t enough, there are what are called “private channels” that you you can add. For those you will need to do a google search to find pages that list them and the codes that you need to enter into your account on the Roku site. once entered, they usually show up fast and work. Boxes like this and the Boxee that can add a large amount of nontraditional or mainstream content to the consumer are something the cable and content providers and creators need to take into consideration. If they’re smart they’ll make as much content available on boxes like Roku and Boxee as they can. The basic idea is they need their content in front of as many eyes as possible.Consumers generally only have a limited time to spend watching tv. The choices of what to watch are almost endless. Cable and Sat companies are having to work very hard to maintain every viewer they have, and attract new ones, which is harder as the choices of content, and where to get it increase almost daily. In the end the consumer has the upper hand; they can tell content producers and distributors what they want to watch and where and how they want to watch it by voting with their pocketbooks. If ventures like Comcasts idea of TV everywhere are left to fly and get started in a big way, we will have a very fragmented ecosystem of Internet tv. which should be avoided at all cost.

So whats the bottom line for this year? Television is no longer a big wooden box in the living room with a 27’ screen that the whole family gather around to watch Jack par, and “I Love Lucy”, and later “Gunsmoke”, and “Whats my line?” and a host of other now classic tv shows. Today. television is more of a concept. Yes there are still physical tvs although they don’t look or work like the tv of old. What would be a more accurate description of a television would be a monitor that plays whatever is piped into it it. be it your DVD or Blue-ray player, to your sat or cable box, or Roku or Boxee, even your computer, it don’t care. Its a content/media player. Much the same as other media/tech terms we use today. The oldest of those is probably the “clicker” referring to the remote control. The term Clicker goes back to first tv remotes which did in fact click when you pressed the button .For a history on the long and varied story of our beloved remote control see this;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_controlAnother term refuses to die is “tape” at least in terms of recording television content to be stored for later use. Tape as a recording medium goes all the way back to the 1950’s or so in studios to record records, the eventually there were consumer reel to reel recorders, and 8 tracks and cassettes. All for audio material only. In the late 1970’s into the 1980’s the rises of the VCR came about and suddenly everyone could get their favorite movies on tape. and as taping from tv became common place, the phase taping came to be. Fast forward to today. Our remote don’t click anymore, and can run a host of componets in a entrainment system. Also today the list of everyday household items that never needed a remote, and now come with at least a simple ir remote is growing everyday. Tape in the media world has nothing to do with tape anymore today its either to a hard drive, or a DVD. We use the term tape when referring to recording content to either a DVD or a hard drive.

As the media landscapes evolves over this year both consumers and content providers and creators, and advertisers will struggle to find the right balance of content distribution, advertising and control. Hopefully the consumer won’t get either caught in the middle, or left behind.

August has been a month of many milestones. I turned 50 early in the month.The technology world has been stood on its head. Steve Jobs resigns from Apple. HP first pulled their tablet,from the market, and then announced they are getting out of the PC business altogether.The 800 Pound Giant in the room, Netflix has stood its ground with Starz and refused to bow to their demands about tired pricing and let them take their content elsewhere. I won’t miss it. Apple, and Steve Jobs have been called one of the greatest inventors in the 20th Century. If one dose research one will find all of the products that he made famous are products that have been made by someone else before he refined it and set a new standard. There had been portable computers before, Apple made them usable. More important then the legacy of Steve Jobs, and it is very important, is the future of Apple and the entire tech industry as a whole. Over the last few months I’ve noticed a change in the focus of many tech company, even companies as venerable as Kodak are changing their focus looking for ways to sagging sales and poor product lines. Right now there are only a very few product lines that are interesting, the top players among them being the tablet, and the king of the hill, is Apple’s IPad. But there seems to have been a shift to a very large degree away from trying to make a better product to protecting intellectual property . ie, their patents. While some concepts and ideas are pretty cut and dried, and obvious , and the patent for that should be obvious, and the company that first filled the patent for it owns it at least to start with,. However, thee are a great many patents are are far more questionable. To the point of one questioning is there even a prototype filed at the patent office, and did anyone even read it? The patent office has said that need access to experts to help them sort through all to the tech patents the receive to help them tell which are legit, and which ones should be rejected. Because they don’t the the personal or expertise to go over all the material.

That's not even counting all of the patents the various companies have already, and are either trying to protect or sell. In many cases the intellectual property may be worth more then the products they make with the information or ideas, sometimes even the company. What kind of messages dose that send to consumers who see new reports about companies suing each other over patent infringement or other subtleties that no lay person or many lawyers can understand. Instead of putting the efforts to helping build the economy by giving consumer better products at lower prices. and creating more jobs and products we want to buy. All their doing is making lawyers rich, and generally making a mockery of the US patent system. A complete rebuild of the US patent system is in order, along with the copyright office and reevaluating the way the publishing industry works. However, I don’t see this thing happening in the foreseeable future.

What dose it mean when Google buys a hardware company like Motorola,? They didn’t buy a printer company, or a camera company. They bought a company that makes hardware to run their operating system. Android. At this point Android is powering roughly about 50% of all the smart phones in use depending on what report you read, and what is being covered, US or world. Point is it it fast edging Apple, and is generally killing other smart phone devices. Thus the questions becomes is there a conflict of interest in Google owning the maker of its own software distributor , the Motorola versions of the Android smart phones. Along with the the other companies who also make phones that run Android. On the flip side, Apple owns both the hardware and the software for their phones, in fact for all of their products. The difference being they don’t licence their IOS out to other hardware builders to put IOS into and sell to the public. Apple maintains a very tight control of their product cycle and loop from development, to production, distribution to sales both on line and retail. Something no other company has ever had. Netflix finds itself in a quandary, much of it its own making. Last month they announced a new pricing scheme, separating the Streaming and the Dvd content, into two separate billing options, and increasing streaming fees. and increasing to total if you want both streaming and DVDs. So essentially you have your choice of three prices. Streaming, is 7.99, Dvd only is 7.99 month Nd more for both Streaming and DVD. Netflix is expecting to lose around a million subscribers due to this new format.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/15/netflix-price-increase-subscriber-loss_n_964026.html It’s expected that after several years of a format that has essentially changed the entire video delivery system in may ways and set new standard to make what are precised as radical changes, to a tried and true format that upsets the satus qu will bring on a out cry, in this case its likely to take the form of a loss of subscribers. Weather it will be as much as they predict or not m also how long the numbers will stay low are two important questions. Balancing them out are the cost of the content . Netflix has to be in a position to pay a fair price for content, but but not let itself be bullied into doing deals like Starz wanted. I have commented several times under different articles about the Netflix /Starz issue. One can be found here;http://www.videonuze.com/blogs/?id=3201#comment-304411031

The whole landscape of on line video is going to reshaped yet again as the dust settles over Hulu, and who eventually buys it. The main goal of any content owner and provider should be essentially the same: To provide consumer with easy acces to any content they have the right to through either subscription, like Netflix, or Amazon VOD, or even Hulu, or Boxee, and Roku, including the IPad, and Android tablets. If the consumer knows they can get they’re content when and where they want it with minimal fuss, and low price, they will be less likely to go to alternative places to get the content they want. Distributors, and content owners will both be paid and everyone will be happy.

A side note on turning 50 this year. Its now been a about a month since my birthday. Sometimes, 50 is a concept one has to wrap ones brain around. The idea that you’ve been alive and doing your thing, for half a century. Most days you don’t feel any different then you did at 49. Suddenly your 50 and everything is older, every tool or possessions that you bought or acquired when you where younger seems older. Events that didn’t seem that long ago suddenly seem like ancient history when you stop and do the math as to how long ago it really was. Getting to be 50 has been a real adventure for me. As many of you who personally know me I’ve had heart issues since I was born, and was not expect to live, I was sent home, they had done all they could do for me. But I survived and eventually a operation was developed in Canada, The Mustard Procedure, which essentially rebuilt the top half of my heart. I was the first one in the United States to have it and Survive. To this day I’m setting new records. I have since gone on to do all the things everyone else dose, high school get married, and raise 4 kids, and many other things that the little blue boy they sent home to die was never expected to. do. The Lord has seen fit to keep me around for this half century .I’m looking forward to many more years of doing what I do best, being a tech pundit and all around geek and movie lover, Lord willing.

Over the last few months much has been made of relatively new tech companies, less then, 2-5 years old coming out and announcing that they want to do a IPO, which is a Initial Public Offering. There are several questions that have been risen, such as do they have a solid business plan, and are they actually making money. While I don’t pretend to completely understand all the ins and outs, of big time money management and all of the ramifications of events to both the economy or the business itself.

There are several basic ideas that I do understand, The primary object of any business is to both make money, and give the consumer the most value for their money as possible. If you give the customer value above and beyond what they expect , and follow it it up with support and service, whatever, that might entail everything from basic hand holding, to either going and fixing or replacing the product with no hassle, and a BIG smile on your face. You’ll do far more more good for your business then any amount of advertisement can ever do. Happy customers come back, and Happy customers talk,, a lot. Word of mouth can go a long way to either building your business, or destroying it slowly. Just remember that the next time a customer is driving you crazy over something YOU think is stupid, to them its important, how you handle what they think is important, is important to them. So much for business 101.

Netflix has become the 800 pound guerrilla in the room when content and tv companies get together. No matter what else they talk about, what deals they may want to do, Netflix is in their shadow waiting to take their market share way form them. Content providers need to go back and reevaluate their core objectives.As I mentioned in the opening segment, the object of any business, be it a small family business that sells fruit out on the side of the road, to a multi-million dollar conglomerate is to give the customer value above and beyond what they expect.Quite simply the TV/media industry at least on the broadcast and consumer provider side, not the theatre side so much, has dropped the ball a LONG time ago. Way back in the 1950’s at the beginning of TV, advertisers knew they had a captive audience and played it up to the max. Having corporate sponsors,and having host of talk and game shows actually plugging the product as part of the routine show, is was annoying, but far less annoying then today's commercial breaks which can last from 3-10 minutes long, and often repeat the same ad several times in a roll.

That just covers what broadcast show “live” on a daily basis to the masses. That includes those who don’t have the technology to bend their TV to their will. Those of us with DVRs can record,pause and rewind and generally bring the TV to its knees. And advertisers hate this. they can’t count on you seeing their ads every time you want to see your favorite show. and Appointment Viewing is long dead. That is to say if you wanted to watch a certain show you had to be in front of your TV at that exact time, or you missed it until next week. Worse yet, if there were two shows on at the same time, on different channels you had to choose which one you liked better. Advertisers loved that, it helped with getting numbers, they could tell much better what was being watched, and who commercials were being seen. Today, consumers demand to watch what they want when and where they want. The devices and platforms that media is available is constantly expanding. Content owners and providers need to embrace the new directions and come up with models that allow them to get access to the content they want, when they want. They need allow consumers to watch their content on a variety of platforms. The basic concept is to spread your content around as much as possible; instead of trying to do a deal to limit ones content to one venue and asking a exuberant sum for a very short year deal, try spreading it out out over several venues with less for money each deal, and make more money in the long run. Better yet they make their content readily available to whole new audiences which might not have discovered content they didn't know about. Making content easier to access or rent, either via Netflix Amazon, any number of other places to rent or view content, doing such deals to let ` the consumers find the content and play it where they want, or need to, with out having to resort to to other means to get the content they want. A YouTube search will yield many movies and TV shows put up in short 10-14 minute segments watching a series of 8-10 segments in a row will allow you to essentially watch the whole program. Whether this is legal is another question for another time. However, the bigger point, is the is people want to see the content, and will put it out one way or another. So content providers do yourself a favor and make you stuff easy to rent, buy or otherwise enjoy the content, and moving content from one platform to another should be seamless with a DRM issue and no issues with software formats not being capable. Everything should just work. The notion of cord cutting that the industry pundits are taking about is probably right to a degree, However, As people get the new TVs that can connect to the web, either directly or through a computer, easiest being hooking a laptop and piping everything from the laptop to the TV, the uses for a fast connection are increased, suddenly you can fire up Netflix, on the laptop and send it to the TV and enjoy the same content from the laptop on the big TV, same for YouTube, any other web content, be it podcast, or videos etc. Suddenly the pipe from the cable provider is’nt as important as it was, However, there’s still a lot of content that only available on broadcast TV. While a large percentage will cut down on the size of the package that keep, both for budget reason, and because content is available on line and they can get it there and pipe it to the platform of choice to watch it. I don’t think its cord cutting, so much as its cord switching, and sharing, one supplementing the other. Some content providers are making strides to make their content available on mobile platforms with limitations, while its a good start. But there’s a long way to go.Netflix has pretty much set the standard for streaming video, and a business model that works. They have been able to get themselves placed in a wide variety pf platforms from DVD players, TVs themselves, I even read at one point, there was talk of them actually having a physical button on a remote, on some TVs, weather anything has come of it, is not important. What is important is their dominance and saturation in the video industry . They do have some big hurtles to jump, the biggest is the deals they have to make with content owners. Every time they try to do a deal the price goes up or the owners want to renegotiate a deal halfway though a contract. The point is if content owners would quit being so worried about their content and how its being used, and work to get it into as many venues as possible and not make is prohibitively expensive that small providers to get into. They would in the long run probably make more then they trying to do with the high price deals they’re doing now, only it’s be spread out over more companies, and longer terms, so if there was a loss somewhere it won't be as much as it it was in one big deal the lost.

The long and short of it content owners, and providers need to go back and reevaluate their core business model, and why they are in business. Are they in business to serve the stockholders, or the customer, aka, public? If its the customer, they need to rethink how and what kind of deals they do, to get their content out, with a minimum of constraints both on the provider and especially the end user. If the customer is is happy and willing to pay the reasonable rental fee or subscription fee, and can get what they want when and where and on what platform they want, with no issues, the profit for the stockholders will come.